


Echoes of Light

by Scampy



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 10:37:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6800347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scampy/pseuds/Scampy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pearl and Rose Quartz have a final conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes of Light

“How many stars have you seen, Rose?” Pearl asked.

“About as many as you, I imagine,” Rose Quartz answered.

The two of them gazed out at a sea of starlight. Shimmering pinpoints and webs of shredded stardust were cast across the sky, stretching across the entirety of Pearl’s vision. Beside her, Rose Quartz was lying down, her blue eyes wandering the reaches of the cosmic canvas before them.

“You know what I mean,” Pearl said. “How many stars have you seen? Flown to? Felt their heat like the beings of Earth feel their own sun?”

Instead of answering, Rose sat up, the folds of her dress rippling around her swollen belly like ocean waves. “Do you remember what Yellow Diamond said to me after I accepted her surrender?”

“I wasn’t there.”

“She told me that she would burn whole galaxies to catch me in the blaze.”

“The Diamonds don’t have that kind of power, Rose. And even if they did, you would find a way to stop them.”

At that, Rose let out a short laugh, and her eyes turned upwards again. Pearl’s gaze returned to the stars as well. Neither she nor Rose said a word, and the universe repaid them with its own silence. For as many lights as there were in the sky, Pearl noticed, there was hardly ever a sound. And for as many nuclear furnaces as there were in view, the night was remarkably cold.

“Do you hate me, Pearl?”

“W-what?” Pearl stammered. “Of course not!”

“I would understand if you did. What I’m going to do... It isn’t fair to you. Or to Amethyst or Garnet.”

“Rose, please, no one is—” Pearl’s voice died when she saw Rose’s eyes. Blue tears and blue eyes shone in the starlight.

“I’ve lived for so long, Pearl. Longer than even you can imagine. It’s been so many eons that even I’ve forgotten how I began. But now...” Rose paused, her voice wavering slightly with every word. “Now, after so many years and centuries and millennia of watching, searching, fighting, killing... For the first time in my life, I’m running out of time.”

Silent as the sky, Pearl raised her hand in trepidation. She reached to touch Rose’s shoulder, but stopped herself. Blinking away her own tears, Pearl instead hugged her arms close to her shivering body, and said nothing.

“You know,” Rose said as she wiped her eyes, “there was some ancient human civilization — I forget which one, though — that believed the world had already been destroyed four times. Or was it the sun? I can’t remember. It’s been so long.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“What I mean is, according to these humans, as... primitive, as they were, the Earth had been reborn from nothing before. Many times before.”

“And?”

“Is that really so hard to believe?” Rose asked. “Everything on Earth is the product of a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Mountains pierce the clouds, only break into stones and sand and blow into the wind. Predators stalk the plains, only to become the grass their prey feed upon. Storms tear across coastlines, only to fizzle into streams and rivers and return to the sea. Nothing is permanent, but nothing is lost, either. The beauty returns in some form or another. It always survives.”

“I’m not sure the beauty could survive being colonized.”

Rose looked at her, grinning. “It’s an entertaining thought, though.”

Pearl smiled. “That it is,” she said.

The two of them returned to silent stargazing. Shivering, Pearl glanced over at Rose to see her sitting with her legs folded to one side, blue eyes staring up at something. Pearl imagined herself leaning into that soft hair, being held close, being safe. Again, she reached out to Rose — and again, she stopped short and pulled her hand back.

“Have you ever seen a nebula, Pearl?” Rose asked.

Pearl shook her head. “I can’t say that I have.”

“It’s unlike anything else in the universe,” Rose said, her blue eyes alive with memory. “Pillars and caverns of rolling dust and gas, and flaming plumes rise higher than you could imagine, each one dotted with cocoons of infant starlight. Such beautiful things are born there...” Her voice trailed off, and she looked down at her rounded belly. She began to tremble, and she said, “I wish I could see one again before I... Before I go.”

Rose stifled a sob, and Pearl was still. She could hold her. She could embrace her. She could promise to take her to a nebula far from here, far from the Diamonds, where they could be alone and speak of stars and suns and life for as long as they wanted.

She could lie to her, and to herself.

Instead, she was silent and still.

“S-sometimes,” Rose spoke, barely above a whisper, “Sometimes I wonder if any of this was worth it. What is the Earth in the grand scheme of things? It’s so vibrant, yet so small... Does anything here really matter in such a big universe?”

At that, Pearl spoke up. “Earth isn’t small in the grand scheme of things. Earth is everything in the grand scheme of things.”

“How do you mean?”

“You never answered me before. How many stars have you been to?”

“Millions. Maybe billions.”

“And how many of those stars had planets with life?” Pearl asked.

“Maybe a hundred? Less? What are you getting at?”

“As far as we know, the universe is a barren wasteland of rocks and gas and nothing,” Pearl said. “And for all that nothing, all that darkness, there are so few candles of life to light the way.”

Pearl saw the beginnings of a smile on Rose’s face, and she continued. “Life is precious. You taught me that. The life of one human means more to you or me than an entire empty galaxy scattering into nothing somewhere out there. And the very fact that life can appreciate life makes it more important than the every dead corner of the universe.”

“It's only because of life that the life means anything at all,” Rose said, brushing blue coils of hair from her eyes. “You’re wiser than you know, Pearl.” She stood and offered a hand to Pearl. Cold as she was, Pearl reached up to grab it — and the moment their hands touched, Rose Quartz evaporated in a burst of cerulean light, leaving only trailing ribbons of blue behind.

Pearl’s gem flickered, and the projection vanished entirely. Tears brimmed in her eyes, blurring the edges of her vision. One by one, the clear drops fell, and the sound of tears on sand echoed across the empty beach, as echoes of light from long dead stars flickered in the sky above.


End file.
